


The Prince and the Clocksmith

by babywarg (morphaileffect)



Series: Ironstrange Bingo [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst, Drama, M/M, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 21:34:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19071118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morphaileffect/pseuds/babywarg
Summary: [Fantasy AU] A long time ago, in the middle of a vast and isolated desert, there was a land made almost entirely of clockwork.It may sound funny, but it's true.





	The Prince and the Clocksmith

**Author's Note:**

> Two songs i kept playing over and over while writing this: [Armaan Malik's "Kyun Rabba (Reprised)"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHxrA51JOf8) (when Stephen loses the use of his hands) and [Sam Tinnesz' "Hold On For Your Life"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZVrWtRF5RQ) (when Tony is pursuing Stephen).
> 
> Yes, I totally had [Ancheim from the Bravely Default series](https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Ancheim) in mind for the clockwork kingdom.
> 
> Also, completely unrelated: please read Harlan Ellison's "Repent, Harlequin! said the Ticktockman" before [a movie about it](https://io9.gizmodo.com/repent-harlequin-said-the-ticktockman-is-becoming-a-1527360564) comes out [[full text (PDF)](https://compositionawebb.pbworks.com/f/%255C%27Repent,%2BHarlequin!%255C%27%2BSaid%2Bthe%2BTicktockman%2Bby%2BHarlan%2BEllison.pdf)]. It was one of the stories that influenced me growing up, and maybe it influenced this fic a little bit, too. Just a little xD
> 
> For lack of alternatives, I’m using the “Free for All” square on my Ironstrange Bingo card (/sobs discreetly because I’d wanted to save that square for last T_T)

A long time ago, in the middle of a vast and isolated desert, there was a land made almost entirely of clockwork.

It may sound funny, but it's true.

Grain mills, water wheels, and vehicles used to transport wares and people, were run with clockwork machinery. Some citizens even lived with parts of their bodies made of clockwork.

That wasn't all - there were soldiers, laborers, entertainers, teachers, and doctors that were made of clockwork.

They looked like humans, sometimes behaved like humans - but they were not human. Their skin was metal, their guts steel receptacles and wire, and their blood the dark lifeblood of the desert, which the citizens of the kingdom simply called "oil."

The secret of making these human-like clockwork creatures was so intricate and so intimately kept, that it could not be replicated - only the people of this kingdom knew about it, and could make it with their own two hands.

The land was prosperous, because its people took the concept of time to heart. Its people acted precisely, down to the last second, not missing a beat, moving as parts of a great machine - and they took joy in it, thinking it a noble purpose.

This land was ruled by a king and his son.

The King was ruthless and cold. He used his clockwork armies to conquer other nearby kingdoms. He exiled or executed anyone who rebelled against the very strict timelines he imposed.

His people agreed: it was his brutality that made him great.

The Prince was not as cold. But he, too, dreamed of greatness.

But where his father dreamed of being feared, he dreamed of being loved.

He made his own clockwork creations with his own two hands - things that did not seek to kill, or conquer, but instead sought to protect, to preserve, and to create other things in turn.

The Prince looked at them and thought: "With these, I can become a great king. An even greater king than my father is."

 

***

 

Now, the Prince had a friend.

This friend had been his rival, when they were still in school.

Where the Prince was friendly and jovial, the friend was stern and severe.

They both knew much about clockwork, but thought of it differently.

The friend believed that clockwork beings had no heart, and existed only to serve those that did.

The Prince disagreed.

"Hearts can be grown," the Prince argued. "You can see it in how affection builds even where there was none before."

"Humans are not made of clockwork," the friend argued back. "Clockwork is simple. Affection is not."

In a way, the friend was right. Affections were not simple.

They both saw this in how they were drawn to each other, how they sought each other out, in spite of their disagreements, their many differences.

But in a way, the Prince was also right. Hearts could be grown.

They both saw this in how they were constantly in each other's thoughts, how they found themselves growing ever closer.

 

 

***

 

After school, the Prince began to dedicate himself to court duties.

His rival began to dedicate himself to the clockwork arts.

He started as an apprentice, but in no time at all, he became a Master.

He was soon regarded as one of the youngest, most skilled Masters in his field.

He became known as, simply, the Clocksmith: the man with the keenest eyes and steadiest hands in the world.

Wealthy people came from far and wide in search of his services.

But his best work was reserved for his Prince.

With his magnificent creations, the clockwork kingdom saw greater fame and wealth than ever before.

Of course, the Prince rewarded him greatly. He was treasured, as a beloved friend and an honored craftsman.

But it was not to last.

 

***

 

The Clocksmith refused to make machines that killed. For that reason, the King wished him dead.

Misfortune befell the Clocksmith as he traveled to another kingdom. Bandits waylaid his caravan.

But there were whisperings that it was the King’s doing - that the King had wanted to kill the Clocksmith, for spurning him so many times.

When the Clocksmith was brought home, barely alive, his hands were badly mangled.

He could no longer hold his finer instruments. He could not even direct his apprentices because his eyes, filled with tears of frustration, could hardly see what needed doing.

For many months, he shut himself away - refusing to see anyone, even his Prince, who attempted to visit as often as he could.

But then, the time came for the Clocksmith to face the inevitable.

People in the clockwork kingdom took time to heart.

And the Clocksmith knew it was time to leave.

 

***

 

He stole away in the dead of night, without a word of explanation. Suddenly, his workshop was closed. Suddenly, no one knew where or how to locate him.

His apprentices were sent to different Masters. His belongings, many of which were gifts from the Prince, were marked for selling or for giving away, as if to say he never meant to return.

He was gone.

So the Prince set out to find him.

But the Clocksmith was the enemy of the King. The Prince was warned that he might be disowned if he continued searching for him.

The Prince left anyway.

 

 

***

 

The Prince brought his best clockwork servants to join him in his search.

Some were automatons that the Clocksmith made. Some were ones that the Prince made himself.

But not even his best clockwork servants could shield him from all the evils that befell him in his travels.

There were bandits, sandstorms, irate rulers of other kingdoms -

\- and worst of all, mystical creatures who did not like his machines.

To escape the worst of these ills, he hid in a cave, and made his greatest creation: a powerful clockwork heart.

To replace his own, broken one.

He learned, through grief and desperation, that he did not need the Clocksmith. He had the skill to make his own great machines.

But still.

He searched.

 

 

***

 

 

After many months, he finally found his friend...

In a village on a mountaintop, very far from the kingdom and the desert that had been home.

Nothing there was made of clockwork. Everything was icy and cold. People thought of time as a fluid thing - something one could not hold in one’s hands, and therefore could not live by.

The Prince found no comfort in being there.

But that was where he saw his friend - healthy, happy, and safe.

And all his discomfort melted away.

His friend greeted him with a warm embrace - almost as if he was a different person. As if the person he’d known from school, from his years in court, had turned into someone else.

His friend had learned to use magic - something completely strange and alien to the Prince.

“It is,” his friend tried to explain, “the fundamental force behind clockwork.”

The Prince didn’t understand it, but he knew he didn’t have to.

His friend still called himself the Clocksmith: a final anchor to a past he no longer wanted.

Magic was something that he did not need hands to do. He kept his hands, broken and scarred, covered in gloves.

Hands that the Prince uncovered, took in his own, and touched to his lips.

“Come back with me,” he said to his friend. "I'll make you new hands."

The Clocksmith refused.

“I don’t belong there anymore,” he said to the Prince.

The Prince said nothing at first. He had lost much in his search for his friend - the love of his father. The trust of his people. His best machines. So much time.

But he soon realized: he had not lost it all. He still had the heart, which he had made for himself. He had his ability to make new machines, ones that did not kill.

And he had his beloved friend. Who was right: he could not go back to the clockwork kingdom, which knew nothing of magic and would regard him with disdain.

“Then stay with me,” he said to the Clocksmith. “Together, we can make a kingdom greater even than the one built by my father.”

His friend hesitated. “The clockwork kingdom is a part of you,” he argued. “You will want to go home.”

The Prince simply answered, “With you, I am home.”

 

***

 

There’s a secret land made of both magic and clockwork.

It may sound funny, but it’s true.

You don’t find it by looking for it. You find it when you need it.

When your heart is weary and nothing makes sense and nowhere feels like home.

Or when your heart has taken to wandering, set on finding something it had lost.

It is ruled by two wise Kings: one friendly and jovial, the other calm and mysterious.

The people who live there love the place fiercely. And the people who find it, seldom find reason not to stay.

There, everyone is free to do and be anything they wish.

There, magic is everywhere.

And there is all the time in the world.


End file.
